Life is never gentle

by Cip

No-one ever said life was kind or gentle and Tony is about to find out the hard way just how difficult it can be. And this time he can't call on the Avenger's for help and can't tell Pepper the truth - he has to do this alone, and that thought is terrifying. FrostIron, warnings inside.

32. Chapter 32

"I don't get it."

When there's a big reveal in life, those are the words to bring it right back down again. Evie was looking between Loki and Thor with a total lack of comprehension.

"What's an Infinity Stone?" She patted Arthur's head as he stopped trying to hide now that the noise had died down. "Why is it a problem?"

Thor gestured at his brother, knowing the trickster was in a far better position to answer the question. Loki folded his hands on his knees as everyone else followed Thor's lead and looked at him.

"There is an artefact, known as the Infinity Gauntlet. It is a vessel made to hold the six Infinity Stones and can give the wearer...Well, the legends say the power of a God." He glanced at Thor and laughed self-deprecatingly. "Not a God as we Aesir deem ourselves, but a God more in the Christian sense. All-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing. There would be nothing that person could not do. Creator, destroyer – they could wipe out the universe with a thought. But they need all six stones in the gauntlet for that supremacy. However, each Stone is thought to have their own unique power and alone are formidable in their own rights. The stones are all named for these powers, although it is not known what exactly they do since they have not been wielded in living memory."

"Alfheim had the Space Gem. It was rumoured to be able to destroy all living material it comes into contact with." Thor said quietly.

"Well let's hope whoever took it doesn't know that and takes themselves out with it." Tony sounded flippant but his worried frown made it clear he was concerned. Loki waved his comment away.

"No doubt that will be the case. If nothing else it is near impossible to use one of the stones without the wielder themselves already knowing magic and power."

"Someone like you then?"

Loki smirked. "And just what did you think the Tesseract was?"

"…What?..."

"Either way, it is not relevant now. The other five stones are all out of the way, as is the Gauntlet itself, so we needn't worry about them."

Tony slumped back in his chair with a groan. "Does anyone remember a few months ago when we thought Hydra were our biggest problem? Good times, huh?"

Steve huffed with morbid laughter. "Beginning to agree with you there. I like enemies I understand and can shoot."

"I'd rather we all just went back to the time when the biggest problem was trying to turf out Tony's latest drunken one-night-stand." Pepper added quietly. "I don't know; Hydra, Shield, aliens, more aliens…I thought I made it clear at the start that the suit was too much. This is all just crazy." She smiled slightly at Evie. "Although some things are an improvement around here."

"You're just saying that because now you get to shop for two."

"You don't know the difference between Oscar La Rente and Rupaul!" Pepper shook her head and glanced at Tony again. "So what now? All of this alien stuff is all very well, but for the Avengers Earth is the priority. Hydra is your priority. Thor and Loki have to sort out who they're fighting for and what is most important to them and we need to fight what's going on down here. Need I remind you Hydra tried to shoot this tower down? And what they tried to do to Evie?! These alien things aren't even here!"

"Y'know, as much as I'm married to Loki, you are totally my business wife." Tony had rested his chin on his cupped hand and was smiling at the woman fondly. "We're all freaking out over ET and you're completely on task and trying to make us all see reason." He nudged Loki. "This right here? This is why I'm still alive."

"No, 'this' is why you still have a company. But you need to all get your heads back down on this planet. If we start getting random Independence Day style attacks then we can start with the ray guns, but until then, Hydra is what you need to worry about. Or for the love of God please find out who's behind all those attacks on the Hydra bases and get Coulson off our backs because he's even started bugging me now!" Pepper rose fluidly from her seat and smoothed down her skirt. "And speaking of, I have a video conference with your Japanese branch, who want to know why Ironman wasn't there to stop said annoying mysterious organisation from destroying an old power plant Hydra were storing things in."

"I would be jealous, but it has been made very clear that that woman is the only reason you are alive, let alone that you still have a company." Loki waited until Pepper had left the room to make the comment, although he meant it as a compliment.

"Hey, she didn't tell on us when she caught us that time; we still owe her one."

"That we do."

"And she even got the sofa cleaned for me."

Evie looked disgusted. "Can you guys not? Seriously, none of us want to hear that kind of shit!"

Thor thumped his fist on the arm of the sofa and barked "Seconded!" before either parent could berate the girl for swearing.

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Pepper's little pep talk (Tony wanted to patent that phrase) did at least get the collective hive mind back to the Hydra Problem. Loki was distant, and Thor very obviously was still distracted but it said a lot that neither even considered going back to Asgard.

Tony had gone back into the phone that they had taken off the Hydra body when the tower had been attacked – and it felt like that was months ago that that had happened – and was slowly going back through the wiped data-base to find any traces of information that could have been left. He wasn't hopeful, but given the amount of time that had passed chances were the security on it would be out of date and therefore easier for him to get around. It was a nice little collaborative project for him to team up with Jarvis on too.

It would have been nice to have some other help, but Bruce wasn't such a whizz with computer systems, and Loki had fallen into a rather sullen mood that made him less than pleasant to try and work with. Evie chipped in when she could, but was still learning how to work with code and stripping a system back entirely was beyond her capabilities.

So it was down to Tony and Jarvis.

"Hey, I've brought food." Evie came into the lab with a laden tray and a big grin, Arthur trotting by her side.

"You're a star." Tony looked down from his holographic display at the insistent tugging on his trouser leg. He disentangled the material from Arthur's trunk. "Hey little guy, that isn't edible you know." He grinned at his daughter. "He seems pretty house trained already, well done!"

"He's really tame, and Möðhy said the breeders always make sure they're fully house-trained before selling them to anyone." Evie put a plate of lasagne on the work-top for Tony and pulled up a stool so that she could balance her own plate on her lap. "So, what you got?"

"Bits and pieces really." Stark waved a hand and the hologram spun and a brought up a collection of data. He didn't explain what it was saying, giving the girl the chance to work it out for herself. Evie frowned at the readings for a moment.

"They look like fractured co-ordinates. Is this from the GPS?" She didn't wait for a reply. "Or…are these text messages with co-ordinates? Ah! No, these are where this phone sent messages or calls from! That's the tower's Lat and Long."

Tony ruffled her hair. "That's my girl!" He pointed out several strings of numbers that weren't as broken up as the others. "I've been digging around and these are the most complete I can get at the moment. It's a location in New York – I've got that much – but there's not much to go on." He glanced at his daughter. "What would you do next?"

"Me? Uh…" Evie stared at the numbers again, obviously not expecting to be asked for an opinion. "Um, Jarvis, could you…uh…is it possible to find out the owners of the properties around that location…?"

"Of course, Miss Evelyn." A list of names immediately took over the holographic display – evidently Tony had already asked this question, and had just been seeing what his girl could do. Evie recognised this, but still took the challenge and ran with it when her father looked at her expectantly.

"Okay." She scanned the list of names carefully. It was an industrial area and the various buildings in the two blocks that Jarvis identified mostly belonged to businesses and corporations. Nothing jumped out immediately as an unusual name or something that shouldn't be there. "Uh, I dunno, this all looks normal; I don't know enough about these types of companies to know what to look out for."

"Fair enough, you know what to do, you just need a few economics lessons. Or to run a multi-billion dollar company for a few days – And no that is not happening any time soon!" Tony's voice was muffled through a mouthful of lasagne as he pointed with his fork at the names. "Now, you were right that you're looking for a weird entry, and if you were a bit more up to date on what's going on in the business world you'd know this company," And he tapped the name twice to select it. The rest of the list vanished and a fact-file on the high-lighted company came up.

"Oh, I see." Evie smiled slightly. "They're a subsidiary of a company that went bust three years ago, right? That's prime real-estate there; someone else should have bought up that ware-house by now."

"See; you know exactly what to do, you just needed a little more information on current economics."

"I'll start reading the Financial Times or something. So now what? That building could just be the local drug cartel." Evie put her plate of half-finished food on the floor, where it was quickly demolished by Arthur. "How do you know that that's what we're looking for?"

"I don't. But it's the only place in those co-ordinates that even slightly waves a red flag so it's our best bet. It used to belong to a company that makes medical supplies; it was their storage facility and after what those Hydra goons said their plans were…"

"Yeah," Evie waved her hands around her head. "Turn me into Frankenstein's Monster, wooo." She was evidently far less bothered by the idea that Hydra had wanted to slice her open in the name of science than her parents were. "So you're thinking that's where Hydra have their medical facility hidden?"

"Makes sense." There was a crunch of china and they both looked down to see Arthur – having finished the uneaten lasagne – starting to chomp on the plate.

"Crap! Möðhy said they eat everything!" Evie laughed and rescued the knife and fork before the Münchrat could start on them too. "It won't hurt him."

"Waste of a good plate, though." Tony looked back up at the holographic display. "So, looks like I'd better tell the others we've got a target."

"Any chance you'll let me come?"

"What do you think?"

The girl pouted. "Fine." Then she brightened up. "Ooh, can I get my ears pierced again?"

"They're already pierced…"

"Yeah, but I want to get another set just above these ones. Still in the lobe, nothing going near the cartilage."

Tony frowned. "What did Loki say?"

"To ask you."

The man shrugged. "Well, I don't see a problem with it – they're your ears. As long as you don't start stretching them it's not like it's permanent." He was rewarded with an over-enthusiastic hug from his extremely happy daughter.

"Thank you! I'll go and get Aunty Pep to come with me the moment she's done with work!"

"You don't want me or your mum with you?"

"You've got a possible Hydra base to go and fuck up; I don't want to get in the way of that."

"Don't swear, but noted."

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Tony decided that they weren't going to need the full team, so didn't wait to call everyone back to the tower. It was a small building and couldn't be holding that many people – if it was even still manned – so he grabbed the Avengers who hadn't gone out for the day. This meant it was a rather ragtag band that set off to the industrial side of Manhattan.

Loki had been drifting around the place and had agreed to go, Rhodey could always be relied on, and then they had Sam and Thor. The five of them were not particularly inconspicuous; by this point even Sam was a pretty famous face around the city, but Loki teleported the group to their location. Given that they were still in New York they weren't going to need to worry about getting stuck there.

The building was non-descript; a small warehouse of the same 60's architecture as the ones around it and nothing to mark it out as anything out of the ordinary.

"No life-signs detected, sir." Jarvis intoned. This was seconded a moment later by Loki.

"He is correct, beyond the rats. This place is empty."

"Is it rigged?"

The trickster looked up at the blank windows. "Nothing that I can sense. We should be cautious, but I believe it is safe."

Given that the district seemed to be deserted there was no hesitation in simply going in through the front door. It was locked – of course – but when Ironman wants to open a door, that door opens pretty quickly.

The place felt thoroughly abandoned; dark, damp and chilly. Even when Loki sent a burst of magic through the electrics and got the lights working it was gloomy.

"Uh, are you sure this is the place?" Sam had his Flacon pack on his back but the wings were stowed away and he didn't really suppose he was going to need them inside a building. "Seems pretty deserted."

"I did say I wasn't sure anything was here. And even if there had been they could have long got rid of it all." Tony raised his face plate – Rhodey did the same – and smiled grimly. "Look, there are four floors, it won't take us long to go through this place and make certain. I'll take this one, Sam you've got first floor, Rhodey second, Loki and Thor take third and we'll be done in no time."

"No time. You could have sent Jarvis and the suits to do this." Rhodey grumbled.

"Yeah, yeah, but then you'd have all bitched about me not letting you do your jobs properly. Now shoo, go do your jobs."

Loki dropped the others off on their various floors whilst Tony stomped off to see what he could find on the ground. Just from a first glance it wasn't looking hopeful. He had been hoping for at least some scattered equipment, some paperwork, something to show that Hydra had been here.

However, all there seemed to be were endless dirty floors, rat droppings, miscellaneous puddles which one could only hope were water and broken glass from the busted windows. It was hardly what he'd been hoping for. The place even smelt bad.

"You guys got the same amount of nothing?"

"Looking at absolute zippo up here." Sam's voice came through immediately. "I'm only two rooms in though. There's been some flooding by the looks of it and I don't trust the floor."

"Get the wings out then flyboy. Anyone else? Anything interesting?"

James replied with a negative as well, but there was radio silence from the two Gods. That wasn't necessarily surprising since neither were very good at keeping contact. Tony left them to it – they were big boys, they could handle themselves.

"This looks to be a waste of time." Loki stepped over the remains of a door that had rotted from its hinges. "I don't know what Stark thought was in this place, but I cannot believe Hydra would have stored anything important here."

"You are an incessant grump at the moment, brother."

"I am merely frustrated with the situation. We know that Hydra have or had a base in the city, and that they were intending to take Evie there; this does not look like a laboratory to me."

"It doesn't look like anything." Thor glanced out of one of the filthy windows. "Hey, you can just see the top of the tower from here."

"Fascinating." Loki was twisting his hands through the air, an expression of intense annoyance on his face. "Look, no-one has been up here for months. This is pointless."

"You are certain?"

"Absolutely." The trickster didn't wait for the other God to agree with him and teleported the two of them back down to where Tony was standing in the entranceway. The man didn't even look surprised to see them appear suddenly infront of him.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." Loki felt compelled to at least add a 'sorry' to his confirmation when Tony's shoulders visibly slumped – suit or not. Sam and Rhodes turned up moments later both with the same outcome; the building was completely empty and appeared to have been so for quite some time.

"Fine. Sorry guys; looks like this was a fucking waste of time." Stark kicked a hole through the nearest wall for good measure. "Right. Fine. Sam and Rhodey, you guys have a quick look in the warehouse next door, just in case, and I'll take the one on the other side. Thor and Loki just…uh…"

"We can check to see if there are basements?" The trickster suggested.

"The building's blue-prints didn't show anything subterranean."

"It's worth a look."

"Whatever."

It was quite obvious that the lack of anything Hydra had seriously pissed Tony off; he didn't like being wrong and was currently being proved very wrong indeed. He stalked off into the other building, leaving his companions to their own tasks.

"Well, he's a bundle of joy right now." Rhodey rolled his eyes and turned to the Falcon. "Come on; quicker we're in, quicker we're out." He looked up at the other building and sighed. "At least this one's only two stories."

Sam's wings unfolded at those words. "I'll take second."

Loki and Thor watched the two soldiers go off into the other building, leaving them standing in the grimy alleyway alone.

"Are there any basements around here?" Thor asked, looking around as if there was going to be a neon flashing sign somewhere.

"I have no idea – I said it to shut my husband up. Give me a moment and I will see what I can sense."

The thunder God took a few steps back to give his brother room to work. He had seen Loki do similar spells before and knew it needed space to be effective. The trickster had spread his hands out and a moment later sent what looked like an orange force-field flying out over the ground. It sparkled there for a moment, like a rather strange frost, before sinking down through the dirty tarmac.

"Anything?"

Loki had his eyes closed and hands out, a faint frown of concentration on his face. "Electrics, phone lines, water pipes. The usual. I'm not seeing any sign of a room of any sort." He slowly walked towards the building they had just left – eyes still shut. "There's a very large sewage system here, they haven't put in fibre optic cable yet, and…oh, that's unusual."

"What? What is?" Thor came up to his brother who was now looking up at the building they had already looked through.

"There's a lead plate under the front three rooms. I can't see through lead but that's not a normal feature in a building." Loki opened his eyes and frowned at the window he was now facing. "I can't tell if there's necessarily a room under there, or perhaps simply a huge safe, but there's something."

"Excellent! Come then, see if you can find an entrance or something!"

Loki didn't express his annoyance at the order as he sent the spell out again. It fed back as a 3D map, almost like sonar. He couldn't necessarily 'see' what was down there but was able to build up an image as if he were using ultra-sound. Despite not being able to sense any further than the lead plate he could follow the shape of it and traced along until he could see some sort of opening.

"Follow me." He quickly re-entered the building and walked to the staircase, following what he was sensing under the dirty floor. "Here." He tapped the side of the stairs, the place where cupboards were often put and now that they looked closely it was possible to see the scars in the woodwork where hinges had once been. "There was a doorway of some sort here at one point. It's been boarded up and disguised but there was something here, and the plating under us leads to here." He took a step back and grandly swept an arm towards the part of the wall in question. "Care to see what's behind there?"

Thor grinned.

It only took one hit from Mjölnir to knock a sizable hole into the side of the stairs. The rotten timbers gave way and they were lucky there were steel girders holding up the main part of the staircase since even demi-Gods get a headache when a building falls on them. Loki gestured at the gaping hole.

"Ladies first." He dodged back as his brother aimed a joking swing at his head. "Go on, there's no sign of any explosives but we don't know what's down there; it's good to have the muscle up front."

"You just want me to be your shield."

"Of course."

Thor chuckled but happily enough stepped into the void under the stairs. He had to check himself almost immediately when the empty space opened up into a steep spiral staircase leading down into the darkness beneath them.

"Loki? Some light would be appreciated."

"Hold on, I think the main electrics of the building continue on down here." Almost as Loki said it the hidden stairwell lit up with buzzing strip lighting circling down the walls into the unknown depths. "Better?"

"Better." It was an old fashioned iron-cast staircase that echoed with every heavy step as they made their way down. "Should we not tell Tony we have found something?"

"We don't know what we've found yet; it could be a cold-war-era bomb shelter for all we know." Loki saw his brother's face crease into a confused frown below him. "Never mind, let us just say there are a few things that it could be other than a secret Hydra base."

The spiral stairs ended in a tiny hallway with the same strip lighting and a single door at the end. It was a much cleaner area than the disused building above them, which already said something about the place. Evidently something had been going on, especially given that the entrance to this area had been hidden.

Thor didn't bother with Mjölnir – the door clearly had no lock – so just pushed the handle down and it opened smoothly.

"Oh…"

The thunder God wasn't someone easily shocked, but the room that he stepped into managed to silence him. They could at least say for definite that they had found the Hydra base, even if it had been abandoned.

There was a steel operating table in the middle of the room – which itself wasn't all that big – belts and straps hanging loose at the sides. It was more than clear that whoever was on that table would not be willing and most likely not anaesthetised. Around the walls there were large racks of medical instruments and scanning equipment, a white board was set up ready for diagrams and there were glass receptacles ready and waiting for whatever might be pulled out of the unfortunate soul on the table.

"Well, we've found what we were looking for at least. Time to call Tony, I think." Thor was still staring at the room, so the sudden thump behind him made him spin round with his hammer at the ready. "Loki!"

Claws grabbing his arms, hauling him out of the cell. Struggling was no good, it was never any good but that wouldn't ever stop him from fighting with everything left in him. The rough belts on the table had scarred his body by now – and bit deeper every time they pinned him down.

Slicing, cutting, ripping, peeling back flesh and muscle and bone until there was nothing of him left. Day after day after day…

"..ki! Loki!"

The trickster blinked and the images of the chitauri faded away to reveal his brother knelt infront of him, big blue eyes unusually frightened.

"What…?"

He was sat on the floor, his back against the wall, and had absolutely no idea how he had got there. Infact, he didn't even remember stepping into the room.

"Are you alright?" The question was laced with frantic concern but Thor tried to keep his voice level.

"I…"

"Loki, are you alright?!"

"Yes…Yes I think so." The trickster took a deep breath, running a shaking hand through his hair. "What happened?"

"I do not know. I looked round and you were sat here on the floor. I thought you were unconscious, but your eyes were open and you were mouthing something. Were you having a vision like Mother does?"

"Hardly." His voice was shaking, and when he looked down at his hands he realised that they were too.

"Here."

Loki allowed his brother to slowly help him back to his feet.

"I think I just had a flash-back...I was back in that terrible place with the chitauri, it seemed so real…" He took a deep breath and looked around the room, then scowled. "Ah. Well that makes sense. No doubt I was triggered by this place."

"Evidently." Thor had his hand on his brother's shoulder, still visibly concerned. "Are you alright now?"

The answer was obviously no, but he wasn't going to say it quite like that. "Well, I can't say I feel particularly good, but I am not about to faint or something." The trickster pushed Thor away and looked around the room again with disgust. "This is hideous. I am going to burn this building to the ground once we're done here."

"Done? What do you intend to do?"

"We need anything Hydra may have left. This place was obviously left in running order so they have not finished with it. There could be some important things here."

Thor didn't know what could constitute as important, but since Loki seemed to know he was willing to follow the trickster's lead. His brother still wasn't looking one hundred percent but as always wouldn't thank anyone for pointing that out. If nothing else it was noticeable that he was quite shaken by the sudden and unexpected flash-back; he'd never experienced one before, and it had completely taken him by surprise.

"Right; you look through those filing cabinets in the corner – we need every scrap of paper left. I'll look through the computer systems."

"Should we not call Tony -?"

"I can work a computer, Thor."

The thunderer took the hint and went off to pillage the cabinet pointed out to him. Straight off the bat he could tell that it had been emptied of anything useful. There was a single divider in one of the drawers with the acronym E. STARK on it – this was obviously the place where they had wanted to bring Evie had they succeeded in grabbing her. Even the thought of the girl in a place like this had Thor breaking out in a cold sweat. It was clear from the set-up of the room that Evie wouldn't have left it alive.

He took the divider out and hid it in his armour – Loki wasn't stupid, and knew what was intended to happen here, but he didn't have to see the direct evidence of it.

"There's nothing here – they emptied it all."

"The hard-drives have been wiped, but I can get this all back to the tower and let Tony rip it apart." Loki waved a hand and the computers vanished – Thor supposed that he had sent them straight to the labs.

They quickly scoured the rest of the room, but there was little else to be found. Loki started systematically incinerating things as he decided they weren't useful and it took a very short amount of time before they were through with everything.

"I'm sure you should have taken photographs or checked for fingerprints." Thor made a weak attempt at humour that fell flat.

"I can reproduce this whole setup as a hologram – and there were no fingerprints, I am not an idiot." The reply was acerbic but Thor didn't take it personally. "Come on, we're done here. Let's go."

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"They're so pretty!" Evie turned her head this way and that, admiring the new stones adorning her ears above the existing piercings. "Thank you Aunty Pep!"

"I keep telling you; it's your Dad's money."

"Yeah, but still, thank you!"

The two women were sat in the kitchen eating the burritos they'd bought on the way home for lunch. At least, Pepper was eating; Evie was admiring her new earrings with her phone on selfie mode. They had gone out to Tiffany's again, like they had for her first piercings. Technically it wasn't a place that usually put earrings in, but for a Stark they would fly to the moon and back, so were more than happy to do Evie's second set. They were just simple studs, but on Tony's pay-check they were also diamonds.

"I can't wait to show Möðhy and Dad! Maybe they'll let me get a tattoo next!" Evie grinned as Pepper choked on her coffee. "Kidding. Although to be fair, Möðhy could probably vanish it if I ever got fed up with it or it was crap."

"Young lady, if you ever got a tattoo I would hope you went to the very best artist around and would not have an issue with it being crap."

"I promise." Evie finally put her phone down and started on her lunch. "Do you think everyone will be back any time soon?"

"I imagine so."

"Should we have got some lunch for them too?"

"They're all adults; they can sort their own food out."

"Guess so."

It was another two hours before people started coming home. Steve had been out at the art gallery with Natasha and it was anyone's guess where Clint had gone but he came back with quite a few shopping bags. Tony, Rhodes and Sam came back as a trio, flying on to the landing platform in a neat formation and were quickly informed that Loki and Thor had found what they were after.

That didn't go down so well.

Tony stomped off to his lab to have a look at the computers Loki had sent him whilst the two soldiers were left to fill everyone else in on where they had been and why. Evie was beyond smug that she had helped with this mission, even if only in putting together the plan with her Dad. It wasn't much, but it made the girl feel like she was doing something useful. She hopped off to the gym with a new spring in her step afterwards.

Down in the labs Tony had put his music systems on full blast, already beginning to rip into the new computer pieces. He wasn't overly hopeful there was anything in there but it was always worth looking – they'd thought the phone was empty and look where that had taken them. Loki had added a note with the tech explaining its set-up which was helpful when trying to rip into the data-banks.

Stark plugged it all in to his own set-up and threw the contents of the hard-drive up onto his holographic display.

"Sir, I have detected three attempts of a software attack on your systems." Jarvis said.

"From this piece of crap? Good luck with that. What did you do with them?"

"I am currently disassembling the programs and seeing how they were coded – we may find them useful in the future."

"Good boy, Jarv."

Tony wasn't in the least bit worried about malware – as he had said many times before, his coding was so advanced no other computer system could even recognise it for what it was. Nothing was going to infect his systems so he wasn't worried about any piece of malicious Hydra virus trying to get in.

"I wasn't certain if there would be anything useful in there – I had a look and it seemed empty, but I thought the expert should tackle it before we declared it redundant."

Loki's voice wasn't all that unexpected, and Tony simply waved a hand in the direction it had come from.

"Hey, thanks, it's already tried to give Jarvis a virus."

"How well did that go down?"

"Jarvis exterminated it with extreme prejudice."

"Of course he did." Loki had teleported in behind his husband, so wrapped his arms around Stark's waist and rested his chin on the shorter man's shoulder. "Have you found anything?"

"Nothing so far, but I haven't gone in very deep yet." Tony flicked a few things around on the holographic display. "Well done on finding this shit, although you two could have called the rest of us down there."

"Trust me, it wasn't something you would have wanted to see, Tony."

"Oh?" The man minimised the screen so that he could turn around and look at his husband. "What happened? What did you find?"

"It was less what was there and more what they intended to do in that place." Loki waved a hand up at the display so that the images he had taken of the Hydra base came up on the hologram. "Look."

He took about half an hour to explain how they had found the room and talk through the images he'd put up on the screen. It wasn't an easy story since he also included the flashback he'd suffered, deeming it important that his husband knew about that. Chances were the set-back was going to going to continue to affect him for a while, most likely in the form of nightmares and Tony certainly needed to be warned about that.

"Yeah…I can see why this brought up some bad memories. You alright for now?"

"For now."

Stark nodded, the effects of that sort of thing were going to be bouncing around for a while and he couldn't guarantee he himself wasn't going to have some nasty repercussions from what Loki and Thor had found. He knew as well as they did who that room had been set up for.

"We're not telling Birdy the details, right? I mean, she knows what they wanted to do but this might make it all just that bit too real…"

"No, we aren't telling her. We do not need her freaking out about it as well as us."

"What did you do with the place?"

"Incinerated it. The building is still standing, but I filled in the whole basement area with concrete after I finished burning things."

Tony smiled sadly. "I love you."

"I know."

That made Stark laugh quietly, folding his arms. "Look who's been watching too much Starwars."

"You and I both know there is no such thing as too much Starwars." Loki leant forwards to rest his forehead against his husband's. "I was really not expecting to be so affected by what we found down there. I thought I had begun to move on from what had happened with the chitauri."

"Come on, it's not even been a year – and don't give me all that 'I'm not human' crap – there's no way you can hope to not be triggered by shit like that."

"…I suppose so."

"Hey. Hey, look at me, Capricorn." Tony used his finger under Loki's chin to cajole the trickster into lifting his head up. "Don't you dare start beating yourself up over this, okay? Someone really should have sat you down as a kid and told you that being affected by the crap that happens to you is nothing to be embarrassed by. Nightmares, flashbacks, triggers, all these things happen and are never something you should feel you need to hide or be ashamed of, yeah? I really don't think I can stress that enough."

"Tony, you have seen enough of my culture to know that any sign of weakness in any form is always used against you. As someone who was so much physically weaker than everyone else I could never give an inch in what I was feeling." Loki smiled gently at his husband's frown. "There was a reason I gave myself the reputation of not caring about anything or anyone. It made it so much easier to hide anything I did feel."

"Well, you don't need to do that now – everyone here has had a bad time of it at some point and we've all had the emotional fall-out. You might even benefit from talking to someone about it."

Loki looked displeased with that suggestion. "I am talking to you about it."

"Yeah, but it might help you to bring someone else into your circle of trust too." Tony sighed in exasperation as his husband stepped back from him with a scowl. "Come on, I'm not having a go at you, I'm trying to help."

The trickster pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "Yes, I know." He glanced up at Tony again for a brief moment, then simply vanished.

"Jarvis? Where did he go?"

"Your room, sir."

It was difficult for Tony to know what to do, and in the end he opted for following his husband upstairs, giving Jarvis the command to continue working on the computers. He took the private elevator that went directly up to his floor to avoid seeing anyone else – he didn't need to discuss why he was so rattled. In truth the images Loki had shown him were haunting him too – he certainly knew he was going to see them again in his nightmares, and most likely with the intended victim in place. It had been one thing to hear what Hydra had intended to do to Evie, but another to actually see the evidence.

Knocking on his own bedroom door was something he was still having to get used to.

"Hey, can I come in?"

"He nodded." Jarvis said, allowing the door to quietly slide open.

Loki was slumped down by the huge windows that looked out over the city, his head resting against the pane of glass. He had allowed his Jötunn skin out and was curling his fingers around so that tiny snow-flakes spun lazily in the air. He must have heard his husband come in, but didn't acknowledge him.

Tony surveyed the scene for a moment before padding across the carpet and settling himself down opposite Loki, leaning against the same pane of glass in a mirrored position. The sun was setting over the city by this point in the evening, and Loki's red eyes had taken on an orange glow. His gaze flickered to his husband when Tony's foot came to knock against his shin.

"Hey, bluebell."

The prince smiled, ever so slightly. "Really? Bluebell?"

"First thing that came to mind." Tony looked up as the snowflakes began to swirl over his head, sprinkling his hair with white. "Unseasonal, but very pretty. What's the reason?"

"No reason." Loki's blue skin had a purple tinge to it in the sunset, and where his head rested against the glass the ridges on his Jötunn skin were dusted red. He frowned at the look on Tony's face. "What?"

"Look, I know it's not what most guys like to hear, so please don't kill me, but you're absolutely beautiful."

Loki smiled sadly. "Well, I am not 'most guys', but at the same time you are probably the only person in the realms to say that to a Jötunn."

"I wish you could see what I see."

The trickster looked down at his arm, his eyes moving over the ridges and whorls that decorated it before shaking his head. "So do I."

There were so many responses Tony could have given to that, and he took a moment to work out his response. "What's in your head right now?" He asked quietly. "What are you thinking of?"

"I'm so tired of all this, Tony." Loki's gaze went back out to the darkening city-scape. "Recovering from the chitauri, all our worry over your health, Hydra, the attack on Evie, Alfhiem and now all of those old wounds reopened. I am just so tired. Sometimes I truly miss those days when we were sneaking about and no-one knew. It was so much simpler. I feel like…Oh I do not know, I cannot articulate it. It's all so much all at once and…"

"You're done. You're just completely and utterly done with all this crap."

"Yes, that sounds about right."

Tony smiled sadly. "Yeah, know the feeling."

"It is knowing, the whole time, that no matter how hard we push through all these problems we aren't going to ever get to the end of it. We thought we just needed to eliminate the chitauri, and then suddenly we had to deal with Hydra, and now it's this Alfheim business and we're still no closer to reaching an end of anything." Loki pressed a single finger against the glass and a gentle frost pattern began to spread out. "I am simply sick of there never being an end to it all. It seems like we are endlessly bouncing from one bad situation to another, and they are getting worse each time."

"I feel like we keep having this conversation."

"That's because we do. And every time we have it, something worse then happens. I am…what was your phrase?...done. I am just done."

The tiredness and defeated slump of his shoulders made his point quite firmly.

"Hey, hey we're going to get through this, yeah? Things always look like crap when you put it like that. What happened to the whole 'I'm half a million years old and have seen a lot of stuff go down so nothing phases me anymore.'?"

"Maybe I've realised I can still be phased."

"Bullshit! You've had a really crap few months and today was the straw that broke the camel's back. You need to recharge, relax and take a breather."

"Tony…" The trickster felt Stark's hand come to rest gently on his arm and started to let the glamour flow back over his blue skin.

"No, keep the smurf look, I hardly ever get to see it and you look so good like this." Tony shifted onto his knees so he could lean over and kiss his husband. "Can I persuade you to stay like this for a while?"

"How long will a while be?"

"I don't know, my stamina's pretty good."

Loki finally laughed. "Is that so?" From how he was sitting it was very easy for the man to push him down onto his back and crawl up to straddle his waist. "Tony! We are right infront of the window!"

"And? We're at the top of the tower; no-one can see us up here."

"There is still such a thing as modesty."

"Nah there isn't. Now are you going to shut up and let me love you or are we going to debate your decorum?"

Loki grinned and shut up.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

Jarvis didn't find anything on the Hydra computers throughout the night, which was probably a good thing because Tony really wouldn't have been happy to be disturbed and Loki would most likely have fried Jarvis' circuits. It had initially been assumed that all the data had been wiped clean, but it was becoming more and more apparent that they had never been used for any data to end up on them. They hadn't even been hooked up to a network. It was a bit of a bugger really, but if anyone could find anything, it would be Jarvis, so he kept at it.

Evie was still doing a pretty good job keeping up with her training, even including the getting up in the mornings. She had progressed from the basic form building in her one-to-one fighting skills and was beginning to learn the tips and tricks from the intermediate level. Natasha had allowed her to start using some different firearms, and her aim had improved with the practice until now she could quite reliably hit her target when using a weapon she was familiar with. She was never going to be a phenomenal sharp-shooter or sniper, but she was at least going to be able to hold her own should she ever need to.

And she had sorted out something else too…

"It's finished!" The girl strode into the kitchen like she had solved world hunger, Arthur in his usual place at her side.

"What's finished, Little Bird?" Loki was at the hob, pouring pancake mixture into a pan. He and Tony had got up rather late for obvious reasons.

"My master piece, my baby, my Piéce de résistance!"

"Are you trying to tell us that you've finished your mysterious project and I can have my lab back?" Tony was nursing a large cup of coffee, and watched his daughter over the rim.

"Yup! All done! Can I try it out?! Please? I can't wait to try it out!"

"And what will trying it out entail?" Loki jumped in there before his husband could simply okay it – and knowing Tony, he would have just said fine and been done with it.

Evie looked a bit put out at the question, then sheepish. "Um…jumping off the roof."

Her parents looked at each other and Tony rolled his eyes. "Neither of us can say we weren't expecting that." He accepted the plate of pancakes his husband handed him. "Does it have to be the roof?"

"Well people might object if I base jump off the Empire State, so yeah, pretty much."

"Are you going to tell us what your grand project is?"

"Nope."

Stark shrugged, pouring syrup onto his breakfast. "Okay, well, give us an hour to wake up properly and we'll meet you up there."

"Thanks dad!" Evie ran off on cloud nine whilst Loki stared at his husband accusingly.

"What?"

"You are seriously going to let her jump off the top of the tower with some unknown construct neither of us have even seen?!"

"Why not? Jarvis supervised the work, so it should at least work and won't explode, and I'll jump alongside her in the suit so if it all goes tits-up either I can catch her, or you can just use your magic. It's hardly dangerous; the worst that can happen is she gets a fright and a bruised ego."

"It's a miracle that girl is as well rounded as she is…"

"She's a Stark; we're a hardy breed."

"Evidently."

They kept their word, though, finishing up and sorting themselves out within the hour to meet their daughter up on the very top of the tower.

September was passing, and the weather reflected that; it was cold and drizzling. So high up the wind was quite furious.

Evie really didn't seem to notice these details as she hopped about waiting impatiently for her parents to turn up. In acknowledgment of the weather she had at least insisted Arthur stayed inside – much to his dismay – and had dressed warmly. In addition to the thick coat and jeans she was also wearing a curious backpack.

"You ready then, Birdy?"

She turned to see her father stomping across the roof towards her, fully suited up and gleaming in the dull light. Loki was a step behind him, a warm cloak whipping in the wind around his shoulders.

"More than!" Evie practically ran to the edge of the roof, leaning over the small wall to look all the way down to the tiny pavement below them. They were so high up the people looked smaller than ants and it was hard to discern the colours of the cars. "Come on then!"

"Wow, hot shot! How's this gizmo of yours meant to work?" Tony caught her arm as she moved to climb up onto the wall.

"You'll see – I need to be falling for it to work properly."

"Well, there's a significant design flaw."

"This is a first attempt, give me a break! How well did the Mark I work when it threw you headfirst into the desert?"

Loki smirked. "She has a point, you know."

Evie retrieved a pair of goggles out of her coat pocket and pulled them on. A tiny HUD flickered across them.

"Did you nick the designs for Falcon's eye-piece?"

"Maybe. But it works more like the interface in your helmet."

"Huh, smart." Tony insisted on taking her hand to help her climb up onto the parapet, there was something about letting his daughter throw herself off the top of a skyscraper that made him over-protective. Go figure. "Right, we just jumping or do you need me to give you a push?"

"I'm going to throw you both off in a moment." Loki sat down on the wall. "I always knew I would get a chance to better the window."

"No-one's pushing me off anything." Evie looked down again then spread her arms out. "Well, catch you on the flip side."

And she jumped.

"She gets that from your side of the family." Was Tony's parting shot before he followed his daughter down.

Evie had never been parachuting or base-jumping before. The sudden rush of air hit her hard, and was an unwelcome surprise. However, she had planned and impatiently waited for this moment for so long that she wasn't going to let gravity in all its majesty frighten her. She reached up to the backpack strap on her left shoulder and pressed the button there.

Four metal cuffs shot out of the back, each trailing a thin wire behind them. Two attached to her wrists – tiny repulsors powering up on them – and the other two fixed on her ankles. The moment they were in place the whole backpack disassembled, following along the four wires to become a full wing suit.

The progress light on her HUD went green and Evie grinned. Spreading her arms and legs the wind caught under the flaps of the wing suit and her fall stopped abruptly. She flicked her wrists to let the repulsors fire and she soared away from the tower.

"Hey! Nicely done, kiddo!" Tony shot past her, and turned to fly backwards so that he could see the whole construct his daughter had created. He didn't get much of a chance, though, when she laughed and slammed her arms into her sides so that she shot past him. Her turn of speed wasn't very good, but enough to take Ironman by surprise.

Usually a wing suit would glide, losing altitude slowly but consistently, but with the repulsors at her wrists Evie was able to keep her altitude up by firing them in quick bursts. The whole set-up was simple enough; the flaps of cloth that served as wings and the repulsors being the main part, with one of Tony's discarded arc reactors in the frame of the backpack to power them and the goggles as a separate entity. There was nothing in the way of weaponry – it was intended to give her a quick get-away if and when necessary.

And it worked.

Evie crowed with delight as she soared over the buildings – keeping just high enough that she wasn't likely to be spotted from the top windows.

"Looking good, Birdy, that's a hell of a job you've done there!"

"It's amazing!"

Tony had to laugh as he watched his daughter working out how to spin and turn by using her arms to direct the airflow under the wing flaps. He knew that feeling; that first moment of knowing that you are flying under your own steam, seeing the whole world as your playground as you zoom through it. There's no feeling like it.

There was a sudden high cry above them and a hawk zipped past before coming to a dead stop and hovering, watching them.

"That you, Loki?"

"Well who else is it going to be?"

"This is the best thing ever!" Evie spun again, laughing. "I am never walking anywhere ever again!" She shot off again – not at any great speed but for someone who had never flown solo before it was certainly fast enough.

At their altitude they had actually covered a significant distance and were cruising over Upper New York Bay. Even with the miserable weather it was one hell of a view.

"What's your range, Evelyn?" Loki's voice was coming across telepathically, but the concern was still there.

"It's powered by an arc reactor, it goes forever!"

"Where did you get an arc reactor?!" Tony sounded scandalised.

"Jarvis let me have one of your old palladium-filled ones. It's not implanted so it's harmless and still works fine."

"I'm going to have words with Jarvis about his definitions of 'harmless'."

"Give over, Dad, it's fine." The girl rolled again, the wind whipping hard against the flaps of cloth. With the sea breeze now in play the construct was beginning to take a beating. A sudden amber light lit up on her display and she frowned. "Aw shit, what's – "

The wire attaching the wing to the cuff on her right ankle had been happily working itself loose and as Evie moved her arm – and therefore the whole flap – it let go entirely.

She dropped like a stone.

"Daaad!"

Spinning and tumbling out of control, somersaulting through the air. Everything across her vision was flashing with red warning lights as she fell straight down. Technically she was over water, logically from that height it hardly mattered; it was going to be like hitting concrete. And Tony was just flying alongside, keeping pace, and not fucking catching her.

"Daaad!"

"Fix the problem, Birdy."

"I can't, I'm going to die!"

"Fix the problem!"

The spinning was getting nauseating, the water below her rushing up at a dizzying speed and her father's voice was just calmly repeating in her ear 'fix the problem, you can solve this, fix the problem.'

The loose end was still attached to her wrist and she managed to grab it with her other hand. Her fingers were numb with the cold – a fact that hadn't been noticeable whilst she was having so much fun. Tucking into a tight ball meant she could reach her ankle to try and plug the wire back in but it tipped her into a much faster spin in another direction. It seemed like an eternity as she fumbled with the thin wire, struggling to find where it was meant to go. The only thing stopping her from freezing up entirely in terror was the red-gold blur beside her and the knowledge that her parents wouldn't actually let her kill herself in an accidental freefall.

With the rushing air Evie couldn't hear the sudden little click, but she felt it as the two pieces suddenly connected and everything across the eye-piece went green. She immediately spread her arms and the wings billowed again as the air caught under them and the repulsors fired to lift her up out of the plummet.

"Oh my God, I hate you two right now!"

"It's called the Icing Problem. Every new piece of tech has an Icing Problem and it's never fun finding out what it is but you've got to sort it then and there or else you're screwed."

"You didn't believe we would let you hit, did you?"

"I hate you both." Evie's voice was shaking, but she was smiling tightly. "Let's go back, so I can sulk properly."

"Do you want a lift back?"

"No."

They had only been out for about fifteen minutes or so, but the journey back seemed longer. Evie was shaken and quite humiliated so was refusing to talk and Tony didn't know how to break the ice without pissing her off. Loki had simply zipped off ahead, little wings whirring.

Evie wanted to land back where they had taken off, but her father insisted they went down to the landing pad so he could get the suit off. She sullenly stalked back down to the lab without saying a word to either Tony or Jarvis, who asked her if she was alright.

"Give her a moment, Jarv, she's pretty angry right now." Stark walked up to the bar and poured out a glass of water. He looked up when there was a clatter beside him and the little hawk hopped across the bar, talons scratching against the marble. "You know, I didn't know you could do that."

"What part of 'shape-shifter' didn't you understand?"

"Yeah, but I've never actually seen you do it before."

"I would have preferred something more impressive; but I assumed New York wouldn't take kindly to a dragon flying over it."

"Would have been cool though; are you going to turn back any time soon?"

The hawk cocked it's head, then hopped a few more paces until it could flutter down onto a bar stool. If Tony had hoped for a cool puff of smoke or something he was disappointed. One moment there was a bird, the next Loki was sat on the stool watching him.

"So what are we going to do about our angry teenager?"

"Leave her to simmer down, I think. I mean; she's got a hell of a good design there, and there are always issues with a first test flight. She was lucky it was just a loose wire and not a blow-out."

"Is the reactor she's using safe?"

Tony snorted. "Define 'safe'. It was one of those that nearly killed me; it's key element is palladium, which can be toxic if it goes directly into the blood-stream, which is what I managed to do. However, she's got hers stuffed in a backpack; as long as she doesn't try to implant it there won't be a problem. It works brilliantly, just not in the way I wanted it to."

"Huh." Loki leant back with his elbows on the bar. "What are you going to suggest she needs to do now?"

"I'm not. This is her project; it's all up to her. Although she's not going to be allowed out solo until I'm happy it's safe."

"What would you suggest if you could?"

"Well, those wires need fixing in properly, and she would benefit from some better shaping to the cloth. She's blatantly based it on the normal wing-suits base jumpers use, and since she's added in flight it could do with a better shape."

"It was a good design, though."

"It was a damn good design! The kid's bloody brilliant! I mean, it's been obvious since she was tiny that mechanically she's a genius. She doesn't quite have the creative spark though." He shrugged slightly. "Not that it matters. She's successfully plugged together elements from existing designs to create her own thing which as an idea is superb."

"It would be better if it didn't send her hurtling towards the ground without warning. You could have caught her."

"So could you. Magic safety net or something."

"You were flying alongside her."

Tony waved his hand laconically. "As I said; Icing Problem. You've gotta learn to bust through it yourself."

Loki didn't seem to agree, but didn't comment.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

Over the next few weeks Evie was either training, or fixing her backpack. She had sorted out the wires and fixed everything in more securely. She refused to let her dad help with anything, but he still managed a bit of subliminal messaging that sorted out one of the problems. They had just started watching The Dark Knight when Evie suddenly leapt to her feet and ran off to the labs. If it happened to coincide with the part when they put an electric charge through Batman's cape so that it held a solid shape when he flew then Tony wasn't going to say anything. As he said; the girl was best at nicking ideas and putting them to her own use.

In the meantime the Hydra computers hadn't yielded any secrets and they were back at a dead end. September had long gone and it was nearing Halloween when there was another very unwelcome call from Asgard.

"Svartalfheim." Thor's voice and expression said it all.

"The same army?"

"The same army. They have been launching small attacks from the time they left Alfheim, but the Dark Elves believed they could handle it."

Loki snorted with morbid laughter. "I bet they did."

"Quite, but now there has been a full scale attack and they have called for aid."

"Are we answering?"

"No."

The reply was shocking given what the Avengers knew about Asgard and its chivalric principles. The Aesir had leapt to Alfheim's defence without a second thought, and the destruction wrought there had been staggering. However, the idea that they weren't willing to even try and save another realm from the same fate was jarring.

"What's wrong with Svartlfartlheim? What the hell did they do for you guys not to help?!" Steve asked.

"We have been at war with them on and off for the best part of a million years. And although we won the last battle Loki and myself were taken prisoner and their treatment of us led the Allfather to declare a judgement that we will never be allies nor come to their aid should the need arise." Thor said carefully.

Tony glanced at his husband, noting Loki's small frown. He knew part of the story there at least; 'war crimes' didn't even begin to sum it up. Even so, it was harsh to condemn a whole race because of something part of the army did a stupidly long time ago.

"Isn't that a bit…I mean, that's a whole realm you're allowing to be obliterated."

"Not exactly." Loki's response was terse. "The Dark Elves are a warrior race and when they weren't fighting us they were at someone else's throats. They have no friends amongst the realms. Needless to say, that is not a reason to leave them to their deaths."

"But we have no choice." Thor finished his brother's explanation. "Asgard's army was badly depleted on Alfheim; we have no-one we can send."

"You guys are in that bad a shape, even now?"

"Even now. Maybe if all of the realms banded together there might be a chance, but enough of us hate each other that that would never happen, and Svartalfheim have burnt all their bridges a long time ago."

Steve nodded grimly. "They've shot themselves in the foot, that's what you're saying?"

"Pretty much."

It was a sombre thought that cast a dark note over the tower. Neither Thor nor Loki were in a good mood and were liable to snap at anyone over the smallest of things and it wasn't sitting well with any of the humans that as they spoke another planet was being destroyed.

It was also a worrying idea that that this was only the main invasion-style attack and that apparently the mysterious creatures had been launching small scale offensives on Svartalfheim since they had abandoned Alfheim.

Tony left his husband alone for the rest of the day since Loki made it very clear he didn't want to talk to anyone about anything. However, the problem with being married means that you can't avoid your spouse come bedtime.

"Hey…"

"No."

Tony stared up at the dark ceiling for a moment before trying again. "Look, can I at least ask a question?"

"No."

"Loki, stop being an ass-hole!"

He waited a moment – wondering if he was going to be ignored or frozen solid. As it was he heard Loki sigh tiredly.

"What do you want to know?" It was too dark for facial expressions, but Loki's voice expressed his frustration quite succinctly.

"Does Svartalthingy have an Infinity Stone?"

"What?"

"Well, they picked one up on Alfheim, is there one on Svartalwhatsitplace too? You said those things are stupidly over-powered, is there one there and do we need to go and nick it before they get their hands on it?" Loki paused again, but this time because he was actually thinking about the question.

"There is one on Svartalfheim, but unlike Alfheim's it is locked away. It is bound into rock with dark magic and should be entirely hidden, they should not even know it's there."

"Shouldn't we go get it just in case?"

"Too dangerous; there will be a full scale battle going on there as we speak and you saw what they managed to do last time. We don't want to be anywhere near that realm right now."

Tony tried to catch his husband's expression but he had a shirt on so there was no helpful little light from the arc reactor in the dark room.

"Do you wish you could help?"

"I would be about as willing to help the Dark Elves in this as I would the Chitauri."

"Wow. There's some serious resentment there."

"You know what they did to Thor and myself. I suppose it is different with humans – you can't hold a personal grudge over a few hundred thousand years because neither you nor your antagonist last that long. But as an immortal I know that those Elves who hurt myself and my brother are the same Elves still there now. If they are all getting slaughtered that is their problem."

"…Fair enough I guess. But I'm still worried about this Infinity Stone thing."

Loki's sigh was overly exaggerated. "What is there to worry about? I have told you it is secure; there is nothing to concern yourself with."

"And if they find it?"

"They won't."

"But if they do!"

"Then they will have two rocks that they can't use! There are only a handful of people in the entire universe that know how to use the Infinity Stones, either with or without the Gauntlet, and these…these creatures do not even appear to possess the capabilities of speech. Just what do you think they could do?"

"I don't know." Tony rolled onto his stomach and thumped his face down into the pillow. "I don't fucking know." His voice was understandably muffled before he tilted his head enough to speak properly. "Look, we'd assumed they found the Stone on Alfheim and went 'ooh, shiny!' and took it. What if they knew it was there? What if they targeted Alfheim because they wanted that thing? What if there's someone out there hunting these fucking things down?!"

He expected the idea to be shot straight down, since Loki seemed to be in a very belligerent type of mood but to his surprise his husband actually gave it some thought.

"I thought we had determined that these creatures are mindless. As we have said; they do not even appear able to speak."

"Yeah; so how the hell have they got the tech for these sort of attacks? How are they getting to these realms in the first place and what are their motives? A mindless animal would attack, kill and settle on their new territory."

Stark felt the covers move as his husband abruptly sat up and could very faintly see the trickster looking down at him in the darkness.

"What are you trying to say here, Tony?" It was a genuine question, something in what he had said had hit home with Loki.

"I don't know. I just think there's more to it now that this Svartalfartl thing is happening. I don't think these things are working alone."

"You believe they are being led by someone?"

"Yeah. You said there are only a handful of people who could use these Stones. What are the chances one of these people has decided the time is ripe and is after them?"

The pause was so long that Tony sat up himself and reached out to find Loki's arm and reassure himself that his husband hadn't just vanished on him.

"Capricorn?"

"Oh by the Norns…"

"Capricorn, you're scaring me."

"This is only hypothetical! We cannot prove that they are even after the Stones at this point!"

Tony found Loki's upper arm and grasped it. "Hey, hey calm down. It is only hypothetical at the moment. Until we can get to Svartlwhatsit and determine if they still have their Stone there's nothing we can do. You said their's is protected by heavy spellwork – what will it take to get it out?"

"Someone would have to know what they're doing. Or rip it apart by shear force, but that would take an awful lot of time and effort."

"Would we be able to tell the difference between someone going 'ooh, shiny' and someone who went in purposely?" Stark felt Loki move and rolled his eyes. "You're going to have to give me more than a head shake or nod; I can't see you."

"Yes. Yes we will be able to tell."

"Okay. Right. Here's what we'll do then; we wait. We wait, you take the occasional peak at Svartigiveup and –assuming they destroy and leave like they did in Alfheim – we'll go in and see what they did. Plan?"

"I suppose so." Loki sounded anything but happy, and Tony was harshly reminded of their talk – some weeks ago now – about the amount of shit that kept falling on their heads.

"This fucking sucks."

"I agree."

Tony settled back down against his pillows and tugged on Loki's arm so that he was pulling the trickster down with him. "Come on, we're going to drive ourselves insane thinking about this." He felt Loki relax slightly against him, and slung his arm over his husband's shoulders.

"You have me worrying about it now."

"Sorry. As I said, this is purely hypothetical, for all we know they are just mindless beasts and the first Stone was bad luck."

"We can hope so. The idea that someone is after all of the Infinity Stones is terrifying."

Tony felt Loki's head move to rest against his shoulder and brought a hand up to run through the trickster's hair. "…Does Earth have one?"

"What? A Stone? No. You had the Tesseract, but I took care of that for you, remember?"

"Heh, that has to be one of the first attempts at mass genocide that actually ended up doing more good than harm."

"I wouldn't put it quite like that, but it certainly had some surprising outcomes." Loki shifted enough to kiss Tony's chin. "So much seems to have happened since then."

"So much has happened since then. Man, I am so glad I decided to go out and get shit-faced in that bar that night! Although I don't know about you but I don't actually remember that night per say."

"I remember the hangover the next morning." Finally, finally a welcome note of humour crept back into Loki's voice.

"Life's a funny old thing, isn't it?"

"It's a pain in the arse."

"And that."

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There was a bad atmosphere in the tower over the following days. Thor was obviously agitated at not being able to go off and sort out the Svartalfheim invasion and Loki was in a permanent sour mood. The trickster and Tony hadn't spoken to anyone else about their concerns, and weren't intending to do so until they had been able to see for themselves what was going on, but this meant Loki was on edge the entire time and it was beginning to grate on people's nerves.

However, their minds were firmly removed from the intergalactic problems by a harried video-call from Pepper. Hydra had finally decided to go on the offensive again and had gone for the Stark Industries research centre down in New Mexico. It had grown out of the bits and pieces Tony had left lying around after building his satellite and was still following the progress of Project Direwolf as it orbited the far edge of the solar system. At least, it had been doing so up until this morning.

There was nothing there that was classified. It was hardly a problem if Hydra had close up photos of Neptune – and the moment the alarm had been sounded Jarvis had stripped all control of the satellite from the place. But it was a territory thing. They had been stomping around burning up Hydra bases, and now Hydra was fighting back and hitting Stark Industries.

And Tony was pissed off.

It had been a hit-and-run kind of attack so there was no fight for the Avengers to storm into, but they decided to go anyway. There would be a mess to sort out at any rate, and one of the goons might have dropped something.

"Why the hell weren't we called the instant this went down?!" Tony demanded angrily.

Pepper looked somewhat contrite. "To be honest…the scientists thought one of you guys had turned up to help."

"Huh?"

"Well apparently the Hydra unit came in through the windows and opened fire – a few people were injured – but before they could get very far someone else came in and started taking them out."

"What?! You're saying someone's already dealt with Hydra, in my laboratories?! Who the hell was it? Coulson?"

"No one saw them clearly, but I can't get hold of any of Coulson's team so it might well have been. Whoever it was all we know is that they were injured by the time they were done."

Tony punched his fist into the palm of his hand. "Mother fucker! So we're going in to basically do a clean-up job after someone else took out the bad guys in my damn lab?!"

"Pretty much."

"Right!" He rounded on the others. "Okay, we'll go in, see what we can do and get the hell out again. And you young lady," He pointed at Evie. "No trying out your wing suit whilst we're out."

The girl knew not to argue.

Once the Avengers had left she went down to Pepper's office and suggested going out for coffee. Chances were the group were going to take a while, and she didn't enjoy being on her own. After the type of day she had already sat through, Pepper was more than amenable to the idea and they didn't go far – just to the Starbucks on the corner – but it was nice to get out of the tower and relax without all the tension and fraught atmosphere.

The two women spent just over an hour out – which Pepper turned into a lunch break, and Evie made the most of having a lunch partner who understood that pastries could count as a meal on their own.

Pepper had a conference call to take, which meant they had to curtail the time-out, but she bought Evie a huge chai latte to make up for it and they made their way back to tower after a decent hour or so chatting. They walked, since the coffee shop was literally only round the corner, but this did mean they ran the risk of being recognised. Evie had been kept out of the public eye with quite a good degree of success, but Pepper was well known and there was only going to be one teenager who would be accompanying her. This meant they had to put up with various stares and the occasional camera flash.

"See, this is why I don't come out often." Evie muttered. "Someone's watching us."

"A lot of people are watching us, just ignore them."

The girl scowled and resisted the urge to put on the sunglasses she'd brought with her. It wasn't really sunny enough to warrant them and would leave her looking quite pretentious, but she could feel the eyes on the back of her neck and desperately wanted to block them.

The sliding glass doors of the tower were a very welcome sight even if it meant having to push through the crowd of people who were perpetually hanging around in the hope of seeing a superhero. It never failed to amuse Evie that her idea of normal was considered absolutely amazing by the rest of the world.

And she still felt like someone was watching her.

Call it paranoia since the Hydra attack on the tower, but the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end no matter what Pepper was saying. Something felt off.

The tower foyer was a huge space with an elegant curved reception desk at one end for visitors. Two Ironman suits – inert – stood flanking the inside entrance, repainted in matching red and gold as a nice big statement of exactly who's tower it was. There were three elevators in the far wall; two that served for the commercial levels and offices, and a solo one for the personal living quarters. Pepper took off towards them, her heels clicking neatly on the marble floor.

Evie didn't follow her – there was a new guy working at the reception desk and she was just at that age where trying to talk to boys was becoming an interest. She left Pepper to it and drifted over, trying to think of a conversation starter. The guy wasn't exactly paying her any attention, but there was a new suit placed next to the desk – Tony was dreadful at wanting to put all his cool tech on display – and she could at least pretend to look at it until he noticed that she existed. And it was a cool piece of tech, even if it was blatantly an old War Machine model.

And the hairs went up on the back of her neck again.

It had been noted before, mostly by her father, that what Evie lacked in cool alien superpowers she had made up for in her reflexes and eye-sight; something had to have been passed on from Loki's side of the family. This meant that she caught the sudden flicker reflected in War Machine's chest plate as she pretended to study it, she saw the man suddenly dropping down from the ceiling not twenty paces away, and saw the gun in his hand.

The receptionist let out a startled yell and Pepper, where she stood waiting for the elevator, spun when she heard the thump of combat boots on the marble.

Evie, however, reacted.

Jumping up she wrenched the gun from the holster on the suit's shoulder and spun. She knew it was active since the suit was plugged up to Jarvis and sprang to life at almost the same movement, as did the other two by the entranceway. However, thanks to her Jötunn genetics Evie was always going to be faster than a computer and by the time the suits were live had already landed two bullets dead in the intruders shoulder.

It would have been a much more impressive feat if they hadn't both ricocheted off, but it did make him drop his weapon.

"Make another move and I'll put one in your head." Had Evie been focussing on anything else she would have been amazed by how steady her voice sounded.

The man infront of her was a complete stranger, but didn't look anything like the guys Hydra had sent. He was dressed in military gear, but it had obviously seen better days and although he showed no signs that the girl's shot had harmed him there were bloodstains elsewhere. He was quite obviously injured.

"Who the hell are you and what do you want?!" She looked at the two mangled bullets that she'd fired. "And what the fuck's up with your arm?"

She didn't get a verbal answer, but the intruder frowned at her for a moment, then eased the torn sleeve of his leather jacket down to reveal what looked like a full sleeve of plate-mail. It was only because Evie was so familiar with mechanics that she recognised it wasn't armour covering his arm, but actually was his arm.

All three suits had their weaponry trained on the man so the girl felt safe enough to lower her gun a little.

"Biomech? Who the hell are you? Are you Hydra?"

"Not anymore." His voice was rasping, sounding almost unused. "My name is James Barnes; I believe Steve Rodgers calls me Bucky."

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